St. Mary’s students top state average on MSA science tests

Friday, Oct. 3, 2008

Students in St. Mary’s public schools ranked six out of 24 school systems for fifth-grade science scores and seven out of 24 for eighth-grade scores on this assessment.

‘‘Although there is much work that remains to be done, we are pleased that the majority of our students are meeting or exceeding the Maryland science assessment standard,” Superintendent Michael Martirano said in a statement this week. ‘‘The science assessment provides us a good comparison of how well our students are performing relative to the state standard and to their peers around the state.”

About 76 percent of St. Mary’s fifth-graders scored proficient or advanced on the science test compared to the state average of 64 percent. In grade 8, 72.6 percent of St. Mary’s students passed the test, 11 percent more than the state average.

Scores were not officially released from the Maryland State Department of Education last year, but St. Mary’s schools did share the 2007 scores with The Enterprise earlier this year.

St. Mary’s fifth-grade scores saw an increase of 4.5 percent this spring compared to 2007. St. Mary’s eighth-graders showed a pass rate about .5 percent higher than the year before.

The science assessment was given for the first time in 2007 to all Maryland fifth- and eighth-grade students. The tests do not count toward Adequate Yearly Progress – benchmarks that grade schools and school systems on steady academic performance from year to year.

Maryland School Assessment passing scores for the math and reading tests, which do count toward AYP, for St. Mary’s fifth-graders last year were 86 and 90 percent, respectively. Pass rates for the eighth grade last year were 71 percent for math and 80 percent for reading.

All of the eighth-graders in St. Mary’s and nearly all of county fifth-grade students took the science assessment online this year, said Claudia Wortman, supervisor of instruction for science. St. Mary’s was one of 10 school systems in Maryland to have at least 90 percent of the tests administered online. Statewide two-thirds of students tested took the science assessment online. Wortman said the Maryland State Department of Education is looking for fidelity between the online science assessments and those taken with pencil and paper. ‘‘The last I heard is they were equally successful,” she said.